The Daily Novel

This week’s Guardian Technology has several letters provoked by Duncan Campbell’s exposure of the flaws in Operation Ore, the massive police operation mounted as a result of the list of several thousand British users of a porno web site passed on by the Americans. The letters, like the comments posted on the blog I wrote about the Campbell article, are either strongly for or strongly against.

The first letter is strongly against.

As a family who have suffered horribly over the lies spun to the public, we are grateful to you for printing more of the truth (Operation Ore flawed by fraud, April 19). We have lost our home (but before we did, we had people throwing eggs at the house and spray painting “paedo” on it; when I complained to the police I was told “not our problem - that’s what you get for being a kiddy fiddler”); our jobs (it is not suitable for a teacher to be living with a man who possibly could have paid to view indecent images); and our savings.

Social Services tried to take our child and forcibly put him up for adoption (they failed) and almost all our friends and much of our family have disowned us. In our case, we proved fraud, but that did not stop the CPS from pursuing the case. Even if you could prove you had never heard of Landslide, that did not stop the local paper reporting about a “disgusting pervert” in the neighbourhood. So thank you.
[name and address withheld]

The second letter puts the opposite point of view.

Let’s get some perspective on what we’re dealing with here, a rising and extremely pernicious crime against children. If the police contact people whose credit card details appeared on Landslide’s list, then let them prove these details were stolen if that is indeed the case. Such “inconvenience” is worth it to clamp down on this horrific crime.
[name and address withheld]

(The same letter appeared in the printed Guardian under the name off Dr Melissa Dearey, lecturer in Criminology, University of Hull, who presumably has made a serious study of the issue.)

All of the comments on my blog were anonymous, which makes it difficult to assess their credibility. (Including the one which accused me of being a member of the Duncan Campbell admiration society). But the first letter quoted in the Guardian contains so much detail that it almost certain to be authentic. And it made be glad that I wrote the blog. It is a travesty of justice when innocent people are hounded in this way, and it is difficult to know just how many such cases there have been, because the victims do not want more publicity, they want to be able to get on with their lives the best they can. Even though they have lost their jobs and in the case of the first writer nearly lost their child.

Dearey’s letter puts the stress on the need prevent the rise in this very nasty crime (and presumably she has the figures to show that it is rising). But whatever the numbers, I share her wish that everything be done to clamp down on this crime. Even if only a few children are violated that is too many. But not at the cost of ruining the lives of innocent adults, which she dismisses as ‘inconvenience’. She does not realise that the damage is done before innocent people can prove their innocence. And in this case many of the people targeted had had their credit card details stolen.

Quite often in these cases the police and sections of the popular press combine to stir up the fears and prejudices of the public. The stereotyping itself is enough to do the damage. And even newspapers like The Guardian only occasionally take up the cudgels on behalf the adults who suffer. Nobody likes to seen as being soft on potential child abusers. And most people don’t want to read about child abuse at the breakfast table.

So all credit to Duncan Campbell for doing this investigative work and to The Guardian for printing it.

His article also highlighted the rise in credit card fraud. I can add a postscript to this courtesy of the Ham and High, which yesterday reported that my nearest petrol station, the BP garage on Haverstock Hill, has become a target for credit card thieves. One reader had £1,700 lifted from his bank account after a visit there. Next time I go, I shall pay cash. But it could happen anywhere. So here is a timely reminder for anyone who banks online. Remember to check your account every day in case your savings are being plundered by the ungodly.